I personally believe that the sole reasons for advances in graphics is the immersion factor. This isn''t exactly the gameplay (helps though), it just lets the person think of the ame as realistic. Many people, or maybe just me, like to have sort of a separate life without too many problems. So...how does this "reproductive system" of yours work? -Anonymous

Graphics add more than just immersion, you get enjoyment from visual appeal, either the quality of the artwork, interesting effects, or both. This aesthetic enjoyment is more than realism or technology (even though those things can help), but the more artistic side of graphics. Immersion and realism are more of a technology related thing, even though attention to detail is part of it also.

I don''t think grafx help in a game as far as gameplay (through emersion yes), but look at many extremely popular games where grafix quality is irrelevant(though they still add them to make it more appealing and ''with the times'') , bejewled, tetris, and other such stratagy games(see popcap.com for other examples). Even some rpg''s are great and envolve a great amount of emersion, with low grafix quality (Nethack was VERY HIGHLY RATED and used simple ASCII characters in one of its modes). Also consider this...Wrere games less fun 5 years ago? Actually i feel they were more fun, because they were new, different. Today many games are the same with different grafical overlays, and they are...boring, repetitive. I feel if a game is meant to model real life in any way, realistic grafix are a must (well in this day anyway, to compete with the compitition, and it has become a norm). Still I love eye candy, espically that of which cannot be obtained without computers (See NeHe''s site (I especially like ptct (Please The Cookie Thing), it has visual effects that are surreal.) Well thats me take.....

''The greatest trick the devil ever pulled, was convincing the world he din''t exist''

quote:
What do you think graphics contribute to games?

I don''t know. What do you think your eyes contribute to life?

I think everyone has pretty much answered your question rather eloquently. The largest percentage of your brain is devoted to processing sight when you are awake and your eyes are open. All of the rest of the senses combined don''t compare when put up against sight in brain power.

Graphics can contribute to gameplay.
Take Unreal Tournament 2003, for example. A lot of people have been tweaking the graphics. They''ll make every skin really bright, so all of a sudden no one can hide in the shadows anymore, or blend into the terrain. They turn off foilage, so they don''t have to deal with the tall grass or leaves on trees. They might turn down the world texture detail just so it makes players stand out even more.
Splinter Cell has nice shadows, but they aren''t just eye candy, they let you know where people are, and you can hide in them. It also has heat and night vision. Sure you could still have heat vision without the graphics, but then who would use normal vision?
In BF1942, riding in a vehicle puts an image over most of the screen, to not only immerse you but to actually affect how much you can see. It would be rather easy to do a bombing run if you could see through the floor of a cockpit!
Perfect Dark (n64) added motion blur to the screen if you got punched. It became hard to walk around, much less survive a shootout.

Graphics can contribute to gameplay. And all of these things (exception: bf1942 example) required advancement in graphics. You couldn''t have a dark, shadowed scene before where people could hide in corners. You couldn''t blur a screen. You couldn''t put a lot of tall grass in a map. But now you can, and now is when people start to realize that there is some impact other than just "looking pretty".

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MSN: nmaster42@hotmail.com, AIM: LockePick42, ICQ: 74128155
"It''s all part of the conspiracy of conspirators conspiring to conspire their own conspiracies..."

It does also sell games. I have to admit that when I upgraded my ATi Xpert 128 16MB PCI to a PNY GeForce 4 Ti 4200 64MB AGP8X, I must have gotten shot thiry times in the UT2k3 demo because I was so amazed at the reflective and rippling water in dm_antalus I think it was.

[  c o d e  m a t r i x  ]

quote:
Graphics can contribute to gameplay. And all of these things (exception: bf1942 example) required advancement in graphics.

advances in graphics?...thats bullcrap!

quote:
You couldn't have a dark, shadowed scene before where people could hide in corners.

ever play Doom, Quake, Duke3D...all of those only used 8-bit graphics and allowed you to hide in shadows...

quote:
You couldn't blur a screen.

sure you could, but not perfectly, with 8-bit color...heck even 16 color games could have bluring.

quote:
You couldn't put a lot of tall grass in a map.

so why did a lot of old 2D top down games do that...heck, many of them even hid the player characters body when they walked through it.

The whole point of game graphics is for the computer/console to communicate the gamestate to the player...anything above that is pure eye candy.





[edited by - MSW on January 7, 2003 2:54:20 AM]

quote: Original post by MSW
The whole point of game graphics is for the computer/console to communicate the gamestate to the player...anything above that is pure eye candy.

I don''t see how a low poly count model with poor shading could visually communicate effectively equine conformation, thus rendering such gameplay elements impossible. A player''s visual acuity comes into play, enhanced by his real knowledge of the subject - something where subtlety is lost with coarse graphics.

Of course, a game designer could always make compromises, just as a movie director could make compromises. Afterall, I suppose any movie today could instead be a series of artboards flashed every 8 seconds, with voice over dubbing.

Graphics makes games look good, but the game is not all pure graphics. Game play does take a major part of the game, but by itsself.. it is still not going to make a great game. There''s a balance between game play and graphics, but I do not know where that is =(

I think 2D games still are very entertaining because of the reduced number of controls needed because the sprites usually only move in 2 dimentions... on the other hand a 3d game does make you feel like you are in the game and complex controls let you have more freedom to do more with your character... such as hiding in the shadows and looking for a frag.

perfect example is mario bros. simple controls and entertaining game.. or take these 2 examples a 3d flight sim and a 2d space shooter. the 3d flight sim has more freedom to do things and the 2d space shooter has simple controls.

just my 2 cents =o)